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Mar 31, 2020

As the Covid-19 pandemic unfolds around the world we are witness to a range of leadership from truly inspired, excellent leadership to awful, morally bankrupt leadership. And this is not an abstract lesson; we need to take this in as teaching. We are all invited into leadership every day of our lives in countless ways that have nothing to do with our role or rank. This week host and shaman, Christina Pratt, offers a new podcast exploring leadership as the micro-expressions throughout every day that are an opportunity to step up and express your values and vision for a better world.

Mar 24, 2020

Pandemics require that we learn to live with ourselves without distractions. For many this feels impossible on a regular day and is especially so now faced with great uncertainty and an unforeseeable array of future issues. This week host and shaman, Christina Pratt, offers a new podcast exploring grounding, fear, and the hazards in journeying about future outcomes to manage your fear. What can you do at home to cultivate effective grounding, parse accurately what that fear really is, and respond to it in ways that transform. Join us for actions that heal in pandemic times.

Mar 17, 2020

Rachel Harris believes there is a new hope for depression, addiction, PTSD, and anxiety. Her hope is deeply grounded in research and clearly expressed in her new book, Listening to Ayahuasca, the result of years of scientific research into the use of ayahuasca, personal experience, and hundreds of hours exploring as a psychotherapist the therapeutic effects of ayahuasca with her patients. Rachel Harris joins host and shaman, Christina Pratt, to share the enormous healing potential in the use of ayahuasca as sacred medicine, the full preparation for and integration of those experiences, and the value of opening up to the rich spiritual world of visions, love, and the deep mystery in the physical world around us.

**This show originally aired September 26, 2017.**

This week's guest:
Rachel Harris, PhD

Rachel Harris, PhD is the author of Listening to Ayahuasca. She received a National Institutes of Health New Investigator's Award, has published more than forty scientific studies in peer-reviewed journals, and has worked as a psychological consultant to Fortune 500 companies and the United Nations. She lives on an island off the coast of Maine. Visit her online

Mar 14, 2020

A Pennsylvania Catholic diocese on Wednesday filed for bankruptcy in the midst of facing several sexual abuse lawsuits against priests.

The Diocese of Harrisburg is the first Catholic diocese in the state to seek bankruptcy protection after a 2018 investigation revealed more than 300 priests had allegedly sexually abused more than 1,000 children in Pennsylvania.

. . .

The statute of limitations in Pennsylvania forbids almost all of the victims named in the 2018 report from suing alleged abusers, The Washington Post reported. But the state Superior Court recently ruled that some victims can sue dioceses, even if the statute prevents them from suing the alleged abusive priests.

This decision sparked several new lawsuits to be filed against the Harrisburg Diocese, which Haverstick told the Post was “something that we considered” when deciding to file for bankruptcy. The bankruptcy would freeze all lawsuits, and any compensation for the victims would become a part of those proceedings.

Mar 10, 2020

Author, professor, and peacemaker, Stephan Beyer, joins host, Christina Pratt, this week to discuss the use of plant medicines (plant hallucinogens or entheogens) in shamanism. Drawing on his vast experience as an academic and deep experience as a shamanic practitioner, Steve will talk with us about the personalities of several of the sacred plants used in traditional shamanic healing and ritual.

We will explore their relevance in shamanic practices outside of these traditions, the contemporary search for healing and transformation, the "selling of spirituality", and what can we say about authenticity with these powerful teachers. Perhaps most importantly we will discuss these plants as teachers who open to us "the dark and luminous realm of the spirits."

In his book, Singing to the Plants: A Guide to Mestizo Shamanism in the Upper Amazon Stephan seeks "to understand one form of shamanism, its relationship to other shamanisms, and its survival in the new global economy, through anthropology, ethnobotany, cognitive psychology, legal history, and his own experiences with two master healers of the Amazon." For more information go to www.singingtotheplants.com

This week's guest:
Stephan Beyer

Professor and author, Stephan Beyer, brings us a beautiful guide to mestizo shamanism in the Upper Amazon and the use of the sacred, plant medicine ayahuasca in his new book Singing to the Plants. Stephan holds doctorates in both religious studies and psychology, was a lawyer and a litigator as well as a wilderness guide, peacemaker, community builder. He has worked with ayahuasca and other sacred plants in the Amazon, peyote in ceremonies of the Native American Church, and huachuma in Peruvian mesa rituals; undertaken numerous four-day and four-night solo vision fasts in Death Valley, the Pecos Wilderness, and the Gila Wilderness of New Mexico; and lived in a Tibetan monastery. From these experiences have come books on Buddhism, Tibetan language and religion, and now, mestizo shamanism.

Stephan has long had an interest in wilderness survival in a variety of terrains, especially jungle survival. He explains that "as I learned more and more about the ways in which indigenous people survive - indeed, flourish - in the wilderness, it became increasingly clear to me that wilderness survival included a significant spiritual component - the maintenance of right relationships both with human persons and with the other-than-human persons who fill the indigenous world. Thus I began to explore wilderness spirituality, to learn ways to live in harmony with the natural world, striving, like indigenous people, to be in right relationship with the plant and animal spirits of the wilderness." In addition to studying how indigenous peoples of North and South America survive and thrive, Stephen studies sacred plant medicine with traditional herbalists in North America and curanderos in the Upper Amazon, where Stephan has received coronación by banco ayahuasquero don Roberto Acho Jurama.

Mar 3, 2020

Author, professor, and peacemaker, Stephan Beyer, joins us this week to discuss his new book, "Singing to the Plants: A Guide to Mestizo Shamanism in the Upper Amazon."
Stephan explains, "Singing to the Plants seeks to understand one form of shamanism, its relationship to other shamanisms, and its survival in the new global economy, through anthropology, ethnobotany, cognitive psychology, legal history, and my own experiences with two master healers of the Amazon."
Join us as we discuss the use of plant medicines (plant hallucinogens or entheogens) in shamanism in the Upper Amazon and its relevance-should we or shouldn't we-in shamanic practices outside of these traditions. We will reach into the depths of Stephan's personal experience to discuss the healing potential of shamanism as well as the potential to do harm through attack sorcery. Ultimately we will explore the idea that shamanism is "irreducibly social" such that all shamanic healing as well as harming takes place within a cultural context where shared values like trust, reciprocity, or generosity are at the root of personal illness and suffering.

"Do you not know, Asclepius, that Egypt is an image of heaven, or, to speak more exactly, in Egypt all the operations of the powers which rule and work in heaven have been transferred to earth below? Nay, it should rather be said that the whole Kosmos dwells in this our land as in its sanctuary." - from the Hermetica